The blog contains articles by the author which appear in various newspapers in Kashmir and are also available on the website: www.kashmirfirst.com

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Understanding Kashmiri Aspirations

(The motivators of various initiatives to
bring peace to Kashmir first need to understand the sentiments and the
aspirations of Kashmiris)

An
unprecedented uprising has just somewhat abated after five months. The uprising
which had been triggered by the killing of a local militant leader of Tral,
Burhan Wani had acted as a Tsunami sweeping away everything in its path.
Kashmir was virtually at a standstill for almost five months. There was one
refrain everywhere, “Azadi”! We may not have seen the end of the unrest but it
is essential to understand the basic sentiments and the aspirations which give
rise to these unprecedented upheavals. Thinking that the people have been
brought to their knees by the use of excessive force and everything is settled
would be the usual blunder committed by the authorities after every such
uprising!

Some
people take Kashmir’s movement for emancipation to have started from early
thirties when Kashmiri Muslims rose to demand their basic rights from the
autocratic rulers. However, Kashmir’s history does not start in thirties only.
If one wants to understand the Kashmir’s present problem and especially the
perennial unrest, one has to go back in history to the times when Kashmir lost
its sovereignty and was merged into the Mughal Empire.

Since
that first take over, Kashmiris never got a breather and had to face the
external masters one after the other who by their notorious means of oppression
squeezed out every sign of civility, honour and self-respect out of them.
Kashmiris have never accepted external rule willingly. They have been fighting
external hegemony even before Mughals, right from the era of the Sultans when they
fought and chased away the Sayyids. Similar to the present rule in Kashmir
engineered by external forces over a period of time, Kashmir was in the same
situation in the time of the Sultans.

According
to Dr. Abdul Ahad, the historian, “the reign of Sultan Hassan Shah is
remembered not for any tangible achievement but for the disrepute he brought to
the Sultanate by falling into lap of luxury and pleasure…”The rule was full of
corruption and oppression. It was during this period that Malik Ahmad Yatu, the
Prime Minister of Hassan Shah invited Sayyids to fight against Tazi Bhat, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Sultan. “The Sayyids, a riotous group of great
notoriety who had been turned out of the valley for their nefarious designs,
not once but twice (by Bud Shah and, subsequently, by Hassan Shah) accepted the
invitation and swooped”. They took over Kashmir by their notorious
machinations. However, the Kashmiris rose against this external rule and
valiantly fought the Sayyids under the leadership of Jahangir Magrey and
others. The Sayyids were humiliated and had to surrender and run away. Thus
Kashmiris were able to restore their own local rule.

However,
the trend set in those early times for inviting outsiders for settling local
scores has been Kashmir’s undoing through subsequent periods under Mughals,
Afghans, Sikhs and Dogras. This continues even during the present times when
people either look towards the Western Countries or to Pakistan to bail them
out from the present oppression. The same had been Sheikh Abdullah’s weakness
in looking outside for riddance from the autocratic rule of the Maharaja. Had
he stood on his own, the things may have turned out quite differently.

It
is not correct to claim that the Kashmiris are not a separate nation. By all
definitions of nationhood, Kashmiris constitute a nation. Kashmir is the only
place in the sub-continent which has a record of written history from the
earliest times. Kalhana wrote the earliest book of history in the
sub-continent, Raja Tarangani in the twelfth century A.D. Kashmir’s history
goes back few thousand years B.C. Throughout the external rule there have been
many uprisings. The Shawl Baf’s uprising in 1865 was an attempt against the
oppressive external rule. The Silk Factory strike and the presentation of a
memorandum to Viceroy of India in October, 1924 was another bid by Kashmiris to
throw off the external yolk. The massacre of July, 1931 gave the real impetus
to Kashmir’s movement for total freedom from external rule. Sheikh Abdullah was
thrown up as a charismatic leader by this movement. It is Kashmir’s misfortune
that he got confused and fatigued towards the end and left his people in the
lurch!

Kashmir’s
political movement has always suffered by the personality cult nourished and
encouraged by outsiders. However, the present day youth are no longer looking
at the “Gods that fail”, the name a friend had given to this personalised
leadership in his article some time back. Although some forces are still trying
to prop up various new leaders or “Gods”, yet the youth do not follow these
blindly. The days of “Ala Kari Wangan Kari, Bab Kari” are gone now. As shown in
the last couple of agitations in 2008, and 2010, the youth rose en masse on
their own because of convictions and it is the” Gods” who had to follow the
youth. Attributing the idea of Independent Kashmir to Sheikh Abdullah is a
gross mistake. Attainment of absolute freedom is ground in the psyche of every
Kashmiri because of the centuries of external suppression. Sheikh Abdullah only
voiced it openly. It may be a debatable question whether an independent Kashmir
is possible or not in the present circumstances but no one can deny that every
honest Kashmiri has always desired absolute freedom. A place where he could
live with dignity and honour and could walk with his head held high.

There
have always been attempts to cloud the Kashmiri aspirations by confusion and
irrelevant debate. Recent comments of a bureaucrat are a typical example of
this deliberate confusion. As Immanuel Kant while describing the “Theory of
Causality” says in his “Critique of Pure Reason”, one gives a thesis, then
anti-thesis and then tries to have synthesis but ends up by creating what he
calls the “Dialectical Illusion”! It would be better not to confound the
reality but to accept the fact that the Kashmiris have certain basic sentiments
and aspirations which need to be attended to without wasting any more time. All
the peace initiatives, dialogues and the reconciliatory efforts should start with
that premise. There can be no lasting peace without that. We will go on
witnessing storms and tornados off and on till that is done.